1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to telecommunication networks, and more specifically to a method and apparatus for configuring an identifier of a segment of a virtual circuit in an end system (e.g., customer premise equipment (CPE) communicating using ATM).
2. Related Art
Virtual circuits are often provisioned between end systems. End systems refer to devices such as customer premise equipment (CPEs) and routers at which virtual circuits terminate. The end systems interface with user systems (e.g., personal computer systems and servers) and enable communication (and thus applications) between the user systems as is well known in the relevant arts.
A path of each provisioned virtual circuit between two end systems is generally defined by a sequence of switches provided on a network. The portion of the path between each pair of devices (including switches and end systems) may be referred to as a segment. Thus, a virtual circuit may be viewed as containing a sequence of segments, with each segment connecting a pair of devices.
An identifier is often used to identify each segment of the virtual circuit. For example, in asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) based networks, each segment is identified by VPI/VCI (virtual path identifier and virtual channel identifier) as is well known in the relevant arts. Thus, the VPI/VCI may be referred to as a segment identifier. In operation, each device sends data with the segment identifier in a header portion, and a receiving device identifies the data with the virtual circuit based on the segment identifier.
Thus, an end system generally needs to be configured with an identifier (“segment identifier”) of a segment (of a virtual circuit) connecting the end system to a next switch in the path of the virtual circuit. The end system can then send data on the corresponding virtual circuit using the configured identifier.
Convenience of configuring segment identifiers is of particular interest at devices such as CPEs which are located in locations such as homes and offices. Convenience of configuration may be of interest generally because users at such locations may not be quite familiar with the configuration aspects of the CPE and/or technology. Accordingly, what is needed is a method and apparatus which enables convenient configuration of devices such as at least CPEs which are used at homes.